Conference engages local students with science

On Sunday, contributors to the Yale Scientific Magazine set aside their writing talents for the day and instead engaged a group of young students with science activities.

Yale Scientific’s annual “Resonance” conference drew 55 local students to 17 Hillhouse Ave. for a day filled with a range of educational events, including a demo fair and a science mentorship panel. Synapse, Yale Scientific’s outreach arm, hosted and organized the event, which brought together a conglomeration of Yale’s STEM students to help youth interact with science.

“This year’s Resonance conference is very unique and very innovative in that this is the first year that we have really incorporated so many other organizations and Yale departments,” said Jessica Trinh ’20, president of Synapse. “This is truly a collaborative effort — not only among our board but also among different clubs and organizations on Yale’s campus.”

To kick off the conference, Sooyun Choi GRD ’23 gave a keynote talk, and then students choose classes to attend throughout the morning, such as “Your Brain on Drugs,” taught by Georgia Woscoboinik ’22 and “How and Why to Save the Birds,” taught by Jon Michel ’22. By midday, attendees set off to learn from the swath of groups that presented at the demo fair.

Nearly ten Yale organizations — hailing from all corners of STEM — interacted with attendees of the conference. Students flocked to the Yale Emergency Medical Services table, where emergency medical technician Chris Alba ’20 used a mannikin to teach students the proper technique for administering hands-only CPR.

Other students observed how code can translate into different robotic movements with demonstrations from Omid Rooholfada ’20 and Darwin Leuba ’21 of Code Haven, a Yale group that introduces New Haven youth to computer science.

When interviewed by the News, representatives from the clubs in attendance said they hoped that their presentations would help high school students become excited about science.

“I had never taken electrical engineering before coming to college,” said Will Sussman ’21, a member of the Yale student branch of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, which presented at the demo fair. “But I think being exposed to the interesting things that you can do in fields like electrical engineering and computer science is super important because it gets people excited early and builds interest in the field.”

Students were asked to write down what they had learned from Yale’s undergraduates at the fair. Responses ranged from “windows kill [0].5-1 billion birds each year” to “wave-particle theory.”

Resonance attendees were also given an opportunity to submit questions to science mentorship panels, which rounded off the conference. A diverse range of STEM undergraduate and graduates students answered attendee questions at three panels.

“We focused on making the panels diverse, because we understand that we need diversity to help people better understand different pathways to science,” said Synapse Social Media Coordinator Leslie Sim ’21, who helped organize the event.

The Resonance conference aimed not only to provide students with interesting information but also to bridge gaps in science knowledge within the community, Trinh said.

To Synapse member Hannah Ro ’22, the event served as an opportunity to engage high school students with upper-level science students.

“I remember when I was in high school, I didn’t have access to conferences like this where I could interact with actual undergraduates who are studying science,” Ro said. “I think it’s a good opportunity for high schoolers to meet undergraduate and graduate students who are studying at Yale.”

The Yale Scientific was established in 1894 and is the nation’s oldest college science publication, according to its website.